Dusty Baker

The Reds manager has his team in the playoffs for the second time in three years. So why are so many people complaining?

"I find it difficult to believe any other first-place manager, in any sport, is as second-guessed as Dusty Baker."

"” Clear Channel sports talk-show host Lance McAlister

The 20-something brother and sister from Cincinnati
were sitting in a hotel lobby near Malibu, Calif., drinking beers while
decompressing from a cousin's wedding.

Naturally, the after-midnight conversation
eventually turned to the Queen City's favorite topic "” why the Reds'
Dusty Baker is a lousy manager.

This particular day, as it has been for two years now, the reason was his lineups. The complaints were familiar.

"How can he bat Drew Stubbs so high in the order?
Why isn't Chris Heisey playing instead of Stubbs? Ryan Hanigan should be
batting
second. Todd Frazier needs to play every day, even after
Joey Votto comes back. Dusty should move Jay Bruce to center field and
play Frazier in right."

If not heard over beers or in backyards over brats, the sentiments are as close as the nearest radio, computer or cellphone.

Never mind that, at that moment, Baker's Reds
enjoyed the largest lead in the standings and the second-best record in
Major League Baseball. Baker had guided them masterfully through two of
their most challenging stretches. Cincinnati went 32-16 without Votto,
who owns one Most Valuable Player award and was in line for another when
he was injured, and 22-12 over a grueling run of 34 games in 34 days
during what are known as the "dog days" of August.

Baker, 63, already had led the 2010 team to the
National League Central Division title, the franchise's first
championship of any kind in 15 years, and its first winning record since
2000. In his fifth season, he was likely to pass Pete Rose for sixth
place in career wins by Cincinnati managers by the end of the season. By
every measurement, he'd done a pretty good job.

Introduce that evidence to the chat, and the response is predictable.

"Yeah, but ..." That should be the manager's nickname — Dusty "Yeah, but" Baker.

Yeah, but there's this: That the Reds are seen by
many to win in spite of Baker and lose because of him doesn't matter to
him. Baker knows he's never going to convince critics, so he doesn't
waste his time.

Dusty's Not Worried

"You aren't going to get it, so I'm not worried
about it," he says. "If people want to find fault, they're going to find
fault. I do the best job I can do every day. I work hard. I'm as
straightforward as I can be. I tell my players the same thing. You don't
have to satisfy anybody but God, family and myself. Those are the three
entities you can't fool."

Folks inside the Reds organization wish fans could
see the work Baker puts into his lineups "” the scouting reports he
studies and personal observations he records in notes of tiny
handwriting while juggling injuries, who needs a day off, who is hot or
not, whose batting strength does or doesn't match up against the style
of that day's pitcher, what kind of defense his starting pitcher needs,
and on and on. His players would like critics to get to know Baker off
the field.

"It's unbelievable what he does, off the field and on the field," pitcher Bronson Arroyo says.

"Bringing food to guys. 'You're sick, I'm going to
give you this.' Sending flowers to somebody's mom wh'™s not feeling
well. It's ridiculous. To me, that part that other people don't know
about — he's far and away the greatest guy I've ever been around in the
game.

"The other stuff he gets criticized for is the type
of stuff everybody gets criticized for "” par for the course. At the end
of the day, when it comes to just the baseball stuff, you should be
measured by wins and losses, and we're having an unbelievable season.
There shouldn't be one bad thing being said about him in the social
media, period."

Blame Facebook

Baker might be as much a victim of technology as
anything. Reds Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman isn't convinced
that fans are more critical of Baker than they were of any other manager
in his 39-year tenure. That is, those not named Sparky Anderson or Pete
Rose. Brennaman does allow for the possibility that irate fans seem
louder and their numbers larger because of talk radio, Facebook and
Twitter.

"The thing that always bothers me is people who
support you are less inclined to call or write than the people who have a
problem with you," Brennaman says..

Clear Channel talk-show host Lance McAlister, who has programs on two local radio stations, hears it as much as anybody.

"I find it difficult to believe any other
first-place manager, in any sport, is as second-guessed as Dusty Baker,"
McAlister says. "He is about to become the first Reds manager since
Sparky Anderson to take the Reds to the playoffs twice, and yet, I get
calls, emails and Tweets that he should be fired for his lineup?

"I've never seen anything like the daily 'Lineup
Angst' this fan base goes through. It seems like some fans are ready to
pounce with complaints as soon as the lineup is released. What's funny
is that I've heard complaints before all 137 games, yet I don't recall
any lineup complaints, or even compliments, after the 84 wins."

Toughened by Chicago

One reason Baker can shake it off here is what he's
experienced elsewhere "” specifically Chicago. In the first of his four
seasons as manager of the Cubs, he had them five outs away from their
first trip to a World Series since 1945. Despite that, he'll forever be
remembered as allegedly ruining the arms and careers of pitchers Kerry
Wood and Mark Prior. That's unfair, according to long-time Cubs beat
writer Carrie Muskat.

"I never understood why fans and some media fell out
of love for Dusty so quickly, considering what he did with the team in
'03," says Muskat, who works for mlb.com. "Wood, for sure, would tell
you he'd run through a wall for the guy."

"I got used to being blasted every day, all day,"
Baker says. "Whatever's happening here, this is nothing compared to what
I've been through."